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How To Avoid 5 Big Business Blogging Mistakes

I don’t like to write about mistakes, but it seems to be a word that people respond to. This post is an example of taking a framework for a post that works and kind of focusing on the positive and how readers can use insight to improve something they’re doing. So my hope with this post is that we’ll kind of look at a general business blogging level.

I look at quite a few business blogs including my own. I see a lot of things being repeated over and over that don’t necessarily work in the blog owners’ favors. So I thought I would at some of those things that are common in the business blogging world and give you some insight into how to avoid these mistakes so your blog can be successful.

So let’s get into it.

Mistake #1. Not Linking To Other Websites

I get a lot of clients and people I chat with discussing the idea of adding links to their posts. The first thought for some folks is that it doesn’t make sense to add links to a blog post because you’re kind of telling readers that they should leave your site.

I encourage you to add links to your posts. Not ever post needs links, but don’t be afraid to link to other sites, articles, blog posts, studies, etc.

Links do a couple things for you. You add credibility to your post and to your blog. You cite your sources. You can add stats and link to the source. That elevates the credibility of your blog.

Linking can also provide more value to your readers. Say you’re writing a post where you share your five favorite tools for something. You link to each tool’s website. Your readers now have those tools at their disposal.

And if readers are getting value from your blog they’re going to come back to get more even if they leave your blog this one time.

Mistake #2. Not Adding Headings

I don’t know what exactly it is, but it’s hard to read huge blocks of content on a website. It doesn’t matter if you’re reading on a desktop, laptop, tablet or phone – headings help to break up the content to make it easier to read.

There are a few posts on GBW that probably don’t have headings, but those I would guess are on the shorter side. I always try to include headings. You’re not writing novels or textbooks when you’re writing blog posts. But now that I think of it even those have chapters and images to help break up all the text.

Mistake #3. Not Writing About Complementary People, Brands, Etc.

This kind of goes along the same lines of linking out. You can only do so much talking about yourself and talking about topics. You have to throw some interest in people, brands and other things and stuff.

This benefits your posts in a couple ways. First, you give more perspective and allow your readers to understand what you’re writing about more. When you talk about a brand, for example, the reader can read the story and kind of pull out their own takeaways, which makes it more valuable for them.

For example, I like to write about business blogs here on the GBW Blog. I try to keep it positive and show the good things these blogs are doing. They are some of the most popular posts on the blog. It seems like readers see a popular blog and they wonder why it’s possible. So I try to answer that curiosity with the posts.

When you write about others it’s also likely that they will want to share your post with their audience. This is beneficial to you because you’ll get traffic for your blog and exposure for your company.

Mistake #4. Getting Too Product-Specific With Topics And Questions

This one can take a few shapes. One of the shapes is that you’ll write a post answering a common question your clients have about the product or service you sell. This is good. Let me repeat.

This is good.

However, you don’t want to only do this with blog posts. In fact, you’re on the right track if you’re doing this. But now it’s time to broaden your approach to answering common customer questions.

Potential customers aren’t asking about your product all the time. In fact, they’re probably asking questions on a much more general level in your industry.

For example, if you sell a golf training aide your potential customers are probably asking all kinds of questions about how to golf better including the full swing, chipping and putting. And they’re probably asking questions about specific golfers, golf courses and all kinds of things related to the general golf industry.

You can all those questions. You’re an expert in the golf industry. You know what’s going on. You can attract the golfer to your site by answering their questions and chances are that many will be interested in your training aide.

Mistake #5. Too Many Calls To Action On The Blog Design

Finally, I see this one starting to creep up on a few business blogs out there. And it’s actually got me thinking about the GBW Blog.

Every page on your site should, in most cases, have only one main call to action. This is the call to action that stands out the most on the page. It’s what you want the person on the page to do once they’re done reading or consuming the page’s content.

You can have secondary calls to action, but you don’t want these to stand out and distract from the main call to action. Secondary actions are there in case people need to go back a step in the sales process or if they want to skip ahead.

For example, on a blog the big call to action is often to signup for the email newsletter or to visit the homepage to learn about the brand behind the content. There are secondary calls that could take a reader directly to a product or to the contact page, but if you get too many and if you get those calls competing against each other they’ll start to distract from each other and from the content on the blog, which is the most important element on the page.

Conclusion

Hopefully this provided a little direction in how you can avoid these common business blogging mistakes. As I wrote this I realized that a few of these mistakes are things I’ve done over the years. I had to learn the hard way how to fix them, but hopefully you can avoid that hassle by using the insight to fix up your business blog and get things going forward.